The luminaries of the Federal Acquisition Service descended upon the Association for Federal Information Resource Management’s Aug. 2 session to highlight the progress of its ongoing embrace of category management.
FAS Commissioner Tom Sharpe—joined by FAS officials Mary Davie, Tiffany Hixson and Judith Zawatsky— talked about challenges of consolidating the federal government’s services by gradually uprooting a decades-old mindset into a more efficient model.
“Managing change, no matter what it might be, is always difficult,” he said.
Sharpe said that there are two competing theories of government when it comes to acquisition: either agencies should individually compete for better deals or leave buying to a central, accountable body in charge of securing services, and he is counting on the latter.
“FAS is all in,” he said. “We’ve bet our entire future on [category management] and we are reorganizing around it. Government is moving that way, and I hope it survives the [presidential] transition.”
The group spotlighted the progress and plans of shifting the government’s No. 1 buyer to a category management model. Among the highlights were:
There Will Be Protests
One big roadblock for the acquisition service is the number of protests by contractors who have often lost out on a federal contract. Asked about their effect on the acquisition process, FAS officials seemed almost resigned to the possibility that protests will become business as usual.
“We expect them, unfortunately,” Davie said. “Everything we are doing, we’re like in an evaluation mode. But what we are trying to do through this whole thing is have more dialogue [with industry.]”
By updating and informing industry of the contracting process, Davie said it can provide contractors with better insight into why contracts weren’t awarded to them, instead of them filing a protest to get more information.
But Hixson seemed less optimistic, saying that no matter the outreach that has been done, it’s not stopped a tide of protests, which have come mostly once the contract has been awarded.
“Right now, we are planning that the protest cycle will be the longest part of the acquisition cycle,” she said. “I’m just resigned to that this is how it’s going to be.”
Professional services, as a category, is moving forward
Hixson said that FAS will soon release the strategic goals for the professional services category, which is expected to account for $63 billion in spend a year and cover services ranging from complex engineering to identity monitoring in case of a cyber breach.
Part of that strategy is setting up supplier management programs, engagement strategies and getting industry feedback on the broader plan, which was expected to rollout this week.
Hixson also said that FAS will spend the year analyzing what is in the professional spend to find the best ways to streamline it.
“Sixty-three billion dollars is a lot of money,” she said. “About 40 percent, right now, is categorized in the Federal Data Procurement System as ‘Other.’
To get a better picture of what the category spends one, Hixson said she has been working with the 10-biggest agencies utilizing professional services to drill down into their services spending.
The Need for Feedback
Better communication between industry and government remains the unicorn of acquisition, one that are both striving to attain.
One way, Hixson said, is to get more insight from industry stakeholders on FAS efforts like the Acquisition Gateway, which opened to the public this year.
“We’ve spent the better part of last year opening up the Gateway to industry,” she said, “and we have probably not zero, but almost zero, feedback from industry.
“It’s really important that you all start to engage, give us feedback, so we can improve how we are supporting contracting officers with doing buying.”
